Cancer Research UK has called for more screening for lung cancer as a key means of reducing the number of people dying from the disease.

The charity has produced its own ‘manifesto’ in anticipation of a general election next year, in which it has issued a series of commitments concerning cancer care and research that it would like to see adopted by whoever forms a government after the votes are counted.

On the issue of screening, it said: “The UK Government should transform and optimise cancer screening programmes and accelerate the roll-out of the lung cancer screening programme in England.”  

Such a measure could require more capacity for storing medical images to ensure it works efficiently, but the benefit could be to detect far more cases than at present.

While smoking numbers are falling and the government is raising the legal age for smoking by a year on an annual basis, screening could capture some unexpected cases of lung cancer, such as among those who do not smoke.

The BBC recently reported on such an instance, in which Lorraine Wingert-Scheeres from Pembrokeshire discussed how her father Jack Cordwell died from lung cancer despite giving up smoking 20 years earlier.

Cancer Research UK has argued that 2,400 more cases a year could be treated in Wales with early diagnosis thanks to more screening.

The Welsh government has said Public Health Wales is looking at how screening can be improved.

While the NHS is devolved in Wales, Cancer Research UK has said that work should be undertaken to overcome regional differences in treatment and early diagnosis, not least in different parts of England. It may be that a more comprehensive screening programme could do this.

Some cancers are already getting this sort of attention, with the government choosing International Men’s Day on November 19th to launch the biggest prostate cancer screening programme in decades.

A major new deep learning breakthrough that enables CT scans to segment tumours, lymph nodes and surrounding tissue has won an international prize.

The development, by postdoctoral researcher in medical radiation physics at Stockholm University Mehdi Astaraki, won his prize at the International Conference on Medical Image Computing and Computer Assisted Intervention (MICCAI).

Dr Astaraki’s work, which was focused on head and neck cancer, won the top prize in the Segmentation of Organs-at-Risk and Gross Tumor Volume of Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma for Radiotherapy Planning category, triumphing in a field of 395 entrants.

He presented his work at the event in the Canadian city of Vancouver in October, where his algorithms demonstrated outstanding performance, coming first in one assessment category and second in another.

His work will mean medical practitioners sharing images using the technology will have better segmented details to study, meaning the data will help inform the treatment paths of patients more accurately and appropriately.

Indeed, a priority for Dr Astarki and his team will be to integrate his developed model with PACS systems, enabling it to play a vital role in planning radiation treatment. His presentation highlighted his desire for collaboration to become recognised as a crucial element of the development of medical image analysis.

Having participated in the contest in October and subsequently picking up the prize, he will present the findings in a news and views session in the spring, offering an update on the development of the system.

The development of new PACS-compliant medical imaging systems may also feature heavily next year, when the 2024 edition of MICCAI takes place in the Moroccan city of Marrakesh.

According to the organisation, the event will be “nothing short of groundbreaking”, although this is both for the new science on show and the fact it is the first time the annual event will have been held in Africa.

A new AI innovation promises to overcome one of the most notable current issues with the management of medical images; the maintenance of privacy while sharing data for diagnostic purposes.

Balancing the need for the right diagnosis to be reached as quickly as possible with the data privacy rules in various jurisdictions is a challenge researchers in South Korea and the US believe they have achieved using a new AI system, Medical Xpress reports.

Researchers from Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology (DGIST) worked with their counterparts from Stanford University to alleviate concerns that when data is shared with deep learning models, there is a risk of privacy violations.

The new system, called federated learning, avoids collating all data at a central server and instead only sends the learned models from each of the hospitals providing details to the server.

An additional concern is that repeated data transfers can cost time and money, but this has been addressed by building into the system limits on how often data needs to be sent. This is done not by placing a strict limit on data transfers, but by enhancing the process of model learning, which means less data needs to be sent.

Professor Sang-hyun Park of the DGIST team said: “This research will allow models to learn universally across all institutions participating in learning without sharing personal information or data.”

This will enable emerging AI technology to do what it does best – using learned knowledge to evaluate data images better and thus improve diagnostic accuracy and success.

An example of the advances this technology offers in diagnostics was recently highlighted by new research from the Institute of Cancer Research (ICT) and The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust, which found that AI is nearly twice as accurate as biopsies at grading the aggressiveness of sarcomas.

This greatly improves the diagnosis and potential for successful treatment of these rare soft tissue cancers. Dr Paul Huang of the ICT said it has the “potential to transform the lives of people with sarcoma”.

Biomedical research companies can only advance their products if they test them, which is why clinical trials on humans are essential. 

However, they need to adhere to strict rules and regulations to make sure they are as safe as possible and ethically sound. 

According to the UK Research and Innovation, the organisation wanting to conduct the trial must show they have received approval from certain bodies before beginning the study. 

These include regulatory authorisations, such as the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA); research ethics committee and Health Research Authority; and the NHS, if within the UK. 

The head of the study must also inform the Medical Research Council (MRC), which funds the research, if there are likely to be amendments that alter the methodology, costs or research query. 

MRC might also ask to see the required approvals before providing the finance if the research subject is particularly sensitive. 

However, it does not need to be shown evidence of submissions, permissions or amendments, or be kept informed of changes to the study unless they are substantial. 

Before going ahead with clinical trials, it is advisable for researchers to take a close look at their systems for good clinical practice and safe reporting.

They need to consider what the risks to the participants might be, develop systems to manage the risks, and make sure they monitor and manage the trial safely and effectively. 

Although there are quite a few regulations to adhere to, clinical trials can have a huge impact on the release of medicines and vaccines. 

More than half a million people in the UK took part in Covid-19 research, which helped develop vaccinations and treatments for the disease at the height of the pandemic in 2020. 

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